Warmth
by TolkienGirl
Summary: It is the first snow that Kili remembers. (Wee!Durins playing in the snow, with appearances from Dis and Thorin. So basically, fluff and cuteness.) (NO SLASH).


**A/N: Wow. I think this is ****_actually_**** fluff. Like, almost 100% angst-free. Basically, my best friend (the Fili to my Kili) wanted little Durins playing in the snow...and Thorin involved. This happened. It also includes Dis, because Dis is the actual best.**

**Note-thanks to the reviewer who mentioned "amad" versus "ama"-I am using "ama" as the affection version...kind of like "mama" versus "mother."**

Dis wakes to a cold room, filled with light, and wonders at how long she has slept. Perhaps, at last, she has reached the end of those early days of motherhood, when the boys still wake with night terrors, or creep into bed with her.

_Perhaps_—but the bed dips and shakes as two eager dwarflings make a tangle of her blankets, forestalling (not _too_ unpleasantly) her hopes.

Kili reaches her first, his dark eyes wide. "The sky is broken, Ama! S'all broken, and it falled to the ground!"

"_Fell,_" Dis corrects absently, pushing back the heavy mass of her hair and glancing towards the window. "But unless the end of all days has come, I do not think it is so bad as all that."

She pushes away her covers and rises. The floor-stones are icy beneath her feet. She lifts Kili to her hip, and waits for Fili to clamber off the bed and slip his hand in hers. Together, they peer out the thick glass panes of the window.

"See?" Kili hisses in her ear.

Dis chuckles. "It is snow, small one. The sky is safely pinned in place, I promise."

Kili chews his lip, still doubtful. "Can we _see_?"

Dis considers breakfast, first, but even Fili's more patient gaze is pleading. "Very well," she agrees. "But not until I've properly bundled you up."

She watches them from the door, tottering out, plump with scarves and many layers of coats. Perhaps she has been too lavish, but they are still small, and Dis remembers well the chattering teeth and frost-nipped fingers of her days in exile. Her sons, she vows, will always be warm.

* * *

Kili scoops up a handful of silver-white powder, cupping it in his gloves. "The sky is so _soft_."

"It's not the sky, silly," his brother chides. "Didn't you hear Ama? It's snow. Just rain, when it's cold out."

Kili puffs out his cheeks and blows, laughing in delight as the snow floats down in a little cloud about him. "Like flour!"

Fili grins. He's seen snow before—Kili has too, though he doesn't remember. He was too small, not even having reached his second summer. Ered Luin's winters are chill, but rarely are they gifted with these fair flakes.

"It's not soft if you pack it," he explains, grinning despite himself, and before he has time to think…_really_ think…he's sent the snowball flying into Kili's face.

Ama will kill him.

Kili gapes, his eyes blinking rapidly. There are tears beginning to gather on his lashes, and Fili feels a pang of true remorse overlaying his guilt. "Kee—" he says, and reaches for his brother, but then Kili just _laughs_, and Fili doesn't know quite what happens next but his mouth is filled with snow, it's down his collar and he's _choking_ on it, and Kili is still laughing.

"Got you!"

Fili spits out an icy mouthful and roars out _Du Bekar!_ because that is what warriors say when they charge into battle.

Kili runs.

* * *

By midday, they are experts. Ama makes them come in for bread and cheese and hot milk, scolding only a little when they leave grimy pools of melting snow on her clean floor, but she smiles as she shoos them out again, kissing their rosy cheeks.

They are experts now, to be sure. They know how to pack a snowball hard enough to spatter quite wonderfully on the great oak by the garden wall, and they have decided that such keen aims are better combined than pitted against each other. Therefore, they join forces, and lie in wait for a proper victim.

(Ama said Bofur will be coming).

(Knock the hat clean off his head, said Fili).

They are behind the garden wall.

Kili pounds his fist on the packed snow. "I can hear him! He's coming!"

Fili presses his glove over Kili's mouth. "Shush! He'll hear!"

They listen, holding their breath as best they can—though it still fogs the air about them—and sure enough, there is the sound of heavy boots trudging along the road.

"Snowballs ready?"

Kili nods.

They wait—and wait—

And then all in a rush, they leap up, sending an impressive volley straight at—

Uncle Thorin.

There is a very long moment of stillness.

Fili is fairly certain they are going to die.

Thorin passes a hand over his face, clearing the snow from his eyes and beard. He has not moved—has not even made a sound, although his furs are pocked with clumps of white.

Kili whimpers, and Fili swallows hard. _'We thought it was Bofur,'_ is an excuse not likely to appease their uncle.

Thorin just _looks_ at them, and Fili wonders what the Maker will have to say when two snow-covered dwarflings, fat with woolen scarves, enter the eternal halls. Perhaps it will be no better—

But then, quick as a flash, Thorin stoops, and Fili has not the time to duck down before their uncle—their _uncle_, the _king_—has lobbed two excellently crafted snowballs straight at the faces of his gawking nephews.

Thorin's aim is remarkable, but Fili knows that they aren't going to die. Not today. When he and Kili have finished their spluttering, they launch themselves over the wall, encouraged by the seeming fortitude of their arsenal.

In the end, Thorin has one of them under each arm, but he relents just before he scrubs their faces into the snow, pulling them into a crushing embrace instead.

"First snow?" he asks, and his voice is deep and rich and warm, even in the frigid air.

Kili nods, but Fili explains. "First one we'll _remember_," he says, and his uncle smiles.


End file.
